Frequently asked questions
What is wrisp?
A writing tool that keeps the whole history of how something was written, not just the finished text. Every insertion and deletion is saved, so you can replay a document being typed, go back to how it read last Tuesday, or branch a draft and try a different direction without losing the original.
It's version control for prose: the ideas behind git, aimed at people writing chapters rather than code.
Does it really save every keystroke?
Every insertion and deletion, yes. That's the point rather than a side effect: replay, branching, comparing drafts and named versions all work because the history is complete.
It means nothing you write is ever really lost. It also means you should treat a document the way you'd treat a diary rather than a whiteboard. If you type something and delete it, the deletion is recorded, and it's recoverable by anyone who can open that document.
Can other people see my writing?
Only if you let them. Projects are private by default.
The way to change that is entirely under your control: a public link. Anyone holding the link can read what it shares, without an account. Links are unguessable, but they're public to whoever has one.
Every link you've created is listed on a project's settings page, and you can revoke any of them from there.
I've been sent a link to something that shouldn't be here
Every shared page has a "Report this" link at the bottom. Reports are reviewed by the people who run this service, who can remove the link or suspend the account that shared it. You don't need an account to report, and whoever shared it isn't told who you are. If someone is in immediate danger, call 999.
What's the November challenge?
Every November: write 50,000 words in thirty days (or set your own target). Join from October, from the banner on your projects page or at /november. wrisp counts the words you add from your own midnight on the 1st, keeps your streak, and tells you how many a day will get you there; cutting doesn't count against you. Your progress is private unless you turn on a public progress page, which shows your word count and the days you wrote, never the writing.
Do you use my writing to train AI?
No. Your writing is used to provide the service and nothing else. It isn't sold, shared with advertisers, or used to train models.
Is my writing encrypted?
In transit, yes: everything travels over HTTPS.
At rest, your documents, their history, your templates and comments are encrypted individually before being written to the database, with the key held by the application rather than stored alongside the data. Someone who got hold of a copy of the database would find it meaningless.
You can also turn on end-to-end encryption in Account settings. Your writing is then encrypted in your browser, with a key only your password (or a recovery code) unlocks, and we can't read it. Nearly everything keeps working; the exception is giving another account access to your projects. Names, and the timing and size of each edit, still aren't encrypted. If you forget your password and lose your recovery code too, nobody, including us, can get your writing back.
Without it, the service itself can read your documents: search, replay and comparing drafts run on our servers.
Project and document names aren't encrypted, because the database needs to sort and compare them. Worth remembering when titling something sensitive.
What happens when I delete something?
It goes to trash, where you can restore it. After 30 days it's deleted permanently, along with its history.
Deleting your account is different: it's immediate and there's no undo.
Can I get my writing out?
Yes, at any time, from your account page. You get a zip containing every document as Markdown and its full event-by-event history, plus a JSON file of everything else held about you.
No part of this app is designed to make leaving difficult.
What's a branch? What's a merge?
A branch is a copy of a document that shares its history up to the point you branched. Useful for trying a different ending without touching the version you like.
A merge brings content from one document into another. If you own the project your merges apply immediately. If you're a collaborator, merging proposes the change and the owner reviews it. They can approve, reject with a reason, or discuss it with you in a comment thread first. Owners can also grant that approval power to specific collaborators.
Could a replay's history be faked or changed later?
Not without it showing. Every edit carries a fingerprint tied to every edit before it, and once a day wrisp publishes a fingerprint of every document that changed, timestamped by an independent authority and committed to a public repository. Neither we nor the writer can change it afterwards.
When someone opens a replay you've shared, their browser recomputes the history's fingerprints and checks them against what was published, then says so above the replay: "History unchanged since" the day it last matched. If anything had been changed, added or removed since, it would say the history doesn't match. The fingerprints themselves say nothing about what you wrote. How it works.
What is "typing rhythm"?
An optional feature that records how fast you type: how long each key is held, and the gaps between keys. It never records which key you pressed, so it can't reconstruct what you wrote or capture a password typed into another window.
It exists so a document can carry evidence it was typed by a person rather than pasted in, which some writers want and most don't care about.
It's off unless you switch it on, on your account page. Turning it off deletes the timing data already collected. Writing works exactly the same either way.
Do you track me? Are there ads?
No analytics, no tracking pixels, no advertising, no third-party JavaScript. The only cookie is the one that keeps you signed in.
What happens to my projects if I close my account?
Every project you own is deleted, along with its documents and history. If a project is shared with other people, they lose it too, so if that matters, hand ownership to a collaborator first. Your account page names exactly which projects this affects and offers the transfer.
Writing you contributed to someone else's project stays with that project. Edits do record who made them, but pulling yours out of a document you don't own would corrupt it: every later edit's position depends on text that would no longer be there. They stay, shown as made by "a deleted user".
Something's gone wrong / I've lost work
Check trash first: deleted projects and documents sit there for 30 days. If you deleted text inside a document rather than the document itself, it's still in that document's history: open the timeline and scrub back, or use search with "also search deleted text" turned on to find a phrase you cut.
If none of that helps, contact [TBD](mailto:TBD).
Who runs this?
Charles Dyer. You can reach us at [TBD](mailto:TBD). See the privacy notice for what's collected and why, and policies for the rest.